President Obama announced Thursday that the present deployment of 9,800 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan throughout the remainder of his term as president. The president cited the “safe haven” narrative to justify changing his former plan to withdraw from the war-torn nation in 2016.

“As commander in chief, I will not allow Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven for terrorists to attack our nation again,” Obama said. “Afghan forces are still not as strong as they need to be.”

A few days earlier, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley told Morning Joe, “I think Afghanistan, as long as we stick with them, and we continue with the current program, and continue to resource that appropriately, I think Afghanistan will turn out ok.” When asked what “Ok” means, Milley gave substantively the same answer.

This is important, because it attempts to establish that U.S. military operations in the Middle East are somehow protecting the lives, liberty or property of American taxpayers. Supposedly, having “safe haven” camps to train and “radicalize” new terrorists is an essential element in the ongoing jihad against the United States.

It’s a convenient story, but it isn’t remotely true. That terrorists need to be “radicalized” in overseas camps before they’ll commit terrorist attacks in America wasproven demonstrably false by the Tsarnaev brothers in 2012. U.S. authorities tried desperately to establish the elder Tsarnaev had joined a militant group in Dagestan before plotting to kill innocent people in Boston, but failed. It turned out he had been radicalized right here in the USA.

TAMPA, March 1, 2013 – Imagine this: You’re behind on your gas and electric bills. It’s Friday. Unless you make a payment on Monday, your utilities are going to be shut off. Your house will have no heat and your only option for light after sunset will be candles.

Now, imagine you borrow the money to pay the bills, but instead of paying them, you go out on Friday night visiting friends and handing the money out. “Don’t bother to pay it back!” you exclaim. “We’ve got plenty.”

You’re either so crazy it’s stupid or so stupid it’s crazy. Probably both. That’s where the U.S. government is. Crazy stupid.

Despite hysterical warnings of economic collapse, sick children without healthcare, cats and dogs living together – you name it – as a result of sequestration, the U.S. government still plans on taking $50 billion dollars that it could use to pay some of its obligations and handing it out to other governments who supposedly need it more. Some media are frantic that it might be cut by 5 percent.

Let’s not forget that these aren’t “cuts” by any definition of the word outside the District of Columbia. A cut would mean that if you spent $1 billion on a particular program in 2012, you will spend $900 million in 2013. The sequester cuts don’t work that way.

Sequestration merely cuts planned increases in spending under D.C.’s “baseline budgeting.” In other words, if you spent $1 billion in 2012 and planned to increase that to $1.2 billion in 2013, sequestration means that you only increase it to $1.1 billion. You still spend more than the year before, just not as much more as you planned.

These are “draconian cuts” in D.C. (Delusional City).

Even if the cuts were actually cuts, it is scary to think that some people really believe that $85 billion in a $3.6 trillion budget would make a difference. For those who do, Nick Gillespie at Reason has some real estate he’d like to speak with you about.

But before you head for the bunker or put a down payment on a famous bridge, I’d like to offer some sensible alternatives to sequestration calamity. Here are three that would solve the sequestration problem with billions to spare: